All PlayStation Network Services, Including PlayStation Store To Return By Week’s End

If you’re a PlayStation Network customer, you may be happy to know you’ll likely have your services back really soon: later this week according to Sony.

In a press release and on the PlayStation blog, Sony announced that full service, including online gaming, PlayStation Store and music streaming service Qriocity will be returned completely by the end of this week in America, Europe and most of Asia, except Japan, Hong Kong and South Korea:

The full restoration of PlayStation Network as well as part of services to become available on Qriocity will include:

• Full functionality on PlayStation®Store • In-game commerce • Ability to redeem vouchers and codes • Full functionality on Music Unlimited powered by Qriocity for PS3, PSP, VAIO and other PCs • Full functionality on Media Go

A few days ago, we reported that Sony would bring back core services to some Asian countries, including Taiwan, Singapore and Malaysia. Those services were brought back successfully, leading Sony to take this bigger step.

The Tokyo based company is also claiming it has applied several security upgrades to make sure such an accident doesn’t happen again, as Kazuo Hirai, Executive Deputy President of Sony so kindly pointed out:

We have been conducting additional testing and further security verification of our commerce functions in order to bring the PlayStation Network completely back online so that our fans can again enjoy the first class entertainment experience they have come to love,

Sony’s debacle has lasted just over a month. In April, the company’s services were brought down and credit card information belonging to customers was leaked onto the Internet. After successive shutdowns, the service hasn’t been fully up to this day. Several other Sony properties were attacked as well: last week, we reported that Sony Music Japan and Greece were broken into and user details were leaked; that same week, the Sony Ericsson Canadian website was hacked and a few thousand user records were leaked.

Sony will be offering a "Welcome Back" package to its affected customers, which will include free games, one weekend of free movie streaming and a free PlayStation plus subscription, or extension to those who are already subscribed. Sony also gave out a full year of premium-grade identity protection from Debix, in order to help customers deal with the credit card leaks. The offer expired on May 28.

It’s been reported that the Tokyo-based company has lost $173 million repairing the damages and refunding users.

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